As an unabashed left-winger and animal lover, I often think about how my meat eating habit squares with my politics and morals. How can I eat cows and pigs, but balk at eating dogs and cats? Why do I draw these lines and accept hypocritical assumptions without losing any sleep at night?

It’s a tricky subject with no easy answer. My vegan and vegetarian friends and acquaintances may refrain from eating meat themselves, but they do feed meat to their pet cats and dogs (though I know they would impose a vegetarian diet if they knew their pets could handle it). The main philosophy behind ethical vegetarianism is that one need not impose suffering and death on others so that you may live. I certainly agree with this in most cases, but upon closer examination I realize that it’s not always so simple. It’s one thing to refrain from buying sweatshop manufactured clothing, quite another to assume that plants are fine with dying so that we may live.

The problem with this philosophy is that it assumes that plants do not feel or suffer; that they don’t mind being your dinner the way an animal would; which is completely wrong. Plants have evolved many techniques to avoid being consumed, which include growing thorns and secreting potent poisons that can sicken or kill. Don’t mistake a plant’s inability to scream and run away as an invitation to eat it–plants came into this world long before we did and to this day, continue to struggle and live just as we do.

That said, I do love animals in general and oppose animal cruelty in all its forms. I try my best to be an ethical meat eater, though it is extremely difficult given how embedded the industrial food system is in our society. It has been suggested that the only way I can be truly ethical is to give up meat altogether, but unfortunately my health won’t allow it. Not everyone is built the same, and not everyone will benefit from a meat-free diet, for better or for worse. So if meat-eating cannot be realistically eliminated, what can or should be done?

A. Strictly regulate animal farms and slaughterhouses.

Ban animal overcrowding. This encourages stress and infection among the captive animals, which leads to antibiotic overuse, which we ingest to the detriment of our health. While overcrowding ensures the superficial cheapness of our meat in the grocery store, the costs to our health remain unaccounted for. With the recent explosion of antibiotic resistant infections, perhaps it’s time we realize just how expensive chicken truly is, no matter what the sticker price says.

No feeding recycled dead animals to naturally vegetarian animals. You are what you eat, and this is no different with animals.

Slaughter methods must inflict a quick and humane death, and must be safe for the administering employees. Too often, slaughterhouse employees must endure horrible and unsafe working conditions so we can have cheap meat on the table. Not only is this unacceptable in the moral sense, but for the public’s collective health as well. When slaughterhouse employees are “encouraged” to process animals as quickly as possible, serious injuries and missing body parts are bound to happen.

Revamp animal waste management practices to minimize and mitigate environmental impact and maximize animal health. Shortcuts that save these companies money often cost the public dearly, in the form of irreversible environmental damage and the negative downstream impact on public health.

Animal well being should be a priority. While I’m not advocating the animal equivalent of Club Med, it should have the chance to live well before it meets its end on our dinner table.

B. Diversify animal protein sources

Eat more insects, which require less land, water and feed to produce than traditional food animals like cows, pigs, and chicken. High protein and low fat, insects are a fantastic health food as long as you can get past your cultural bias.

Develop and perfect lab grown meat.

Eat less water and land intensive meat (cows, chickens, pigs) to preserve the environment.

This proposed outline is by no means perfect. It doesn’t address cultural hypocrisy in any way. I understand that cows, pigs and chickens are sentient beings with personalities. I don’t eat enough insects because I’m no good at catching and preparing them, and the curry flavored crickets I bought at the novelty store taste like crap. Our cat and dog need to eat, so I feed them cow, chicken, and fish.

I suppose its’ more accurate to say that I love certain kinds of animals. Still, selective love is no excuse for unnecessary cruelty and sadism (not that cruelty or sadism has ever been necessary). I’ve never loved a cow or a turkey, but that doesn’t mean it’s ever ok to torture and abuse it.

We live in a world where the dead nourish the living. Whether that’s fair or moral, I honestly don’t know.

The search for the Anti-American makes for passionate political sport, which doubles as a fantastic method for silencing dissent. It has brilliantly succeeded in intimidating the American Left into ceding the patriotism debate to the right wing, shriveling a once vibrant movement into a faded facsimile of its former self. Anytime there is any sort of criticism about our government, the right immediately screeches in lockstep and accuses the left of hating America. In their view, people of my ilk are nothing more than just a bunch of soft-headed masochist losers who let their misplaced guilt get the best of them.

For the record, soft-headed masochist losers come in all political, racial, sexual orientation, gender, and ideological flavors. Believe me when I say that the left has no monopoly on this particular demographic. But in all seriousness now, how can you tell if someone loves or hates America? Is there some kind of FAQ or short quiz that can help suss out the haters in 10 minutes or less? Do all Anti-Americans look and dress a certain way that signifies their true nature?

Given my criticisms of American foreign policy, it’s easy for many people to mistake my views as anti-American. As an American living in America, the last thing I want is for my country to go down the drain and for me to go down with it. To state the obvious, living here means I have a vested interest in its success and livability. I am a believer and practitioner of enlightened self interest, and opposing the belligerent policy towards Russia–a country with advanced nuclear weapons (!)–is not only logical, but extremely Pro-American. Avoiding nuclear war won’t just spare Russian lives–it will spare American lives too, as the warmongers and desktop warriors like to forget.

The people currently in power do not represent my interests, nor do they represent the will of the vast majority of American people. Our leadership are wealthy and far removed from the concerns of the typical citizen, who continue to slave away at dead end jobs, only to make enough money to go back to work the next day. If a nuclear holocaust does happen, they have their doomsday bunkers to retreat to, which may account for their cavalier attitude towards antagonizing Russia. When the end of the world does come, the hoi polloi will be simply shit out of luck.

Given the recklessness of our current foreign and domestic policy, a case could be made that our leaders may be the true Anti-Americans. I don’t make this charge lightly. An honest accounting of our current state of affairs bears out this unfortunate assessment:

1) Our infrastructure is going to shit.

2) Most of the good jobs that disappeared have been replaced with low wage service jobs. Sure you have a job, but good luck being able to afford anything else besides rent. The current minimum wage isn’t enough to live on, and unions are no longer a viable counterweight to the all powerful corporatocracy.

3) Criminally irresponsible stewardship of the environment is standard operating procedure in almost every state in the union. From the mismanagement of freshwater resources to state-mandated denials of scientifically proven phenomena; from polluting public aquifers with injected fracking waste water to hiding the true cause of man made earthquakes; anything and everything can be deemed acceptable when done in the pursuit of company profits. You don’t have to be an environmentalist to be alarmed over these developments–even the most calcified, selfish capitalist should understand that sickening and killing customers are ultimately bad business. Not because it’s bad PR mind you (though of course it definitely is), but because sick and dead people can never be repeat customers.

4) We still don’t have universal single payer healthcare. What we have is Obamacare, which is a corporate giveaway that does nothing to control rising premiums. While the ban on denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions is nice improvement, it doesn’t change the fact that you are still overpaying for substandard care. Other countries have mandates that limit hospital and pharmaceutical price gouging, but we can’t implement this common sense practice here because the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies will never let it happen.

The grim diagnosis should be obvious by now without having to list the entire assortment of America’s problems. What is currently happening to America is definitely by design rather than by accident. The country is reeling from massive damage to its pride and its finances, with the lower and middle classes decisively flattened by the impact. So who is truly responsible for the death of the American Dream? Who can we blame with absolute confidence?

Vladimir Putin didn’t inflict man made earthquakes on Oklahomans, nor did he order the injection of carcinogenic waste water into our public aquifers. China didn’t crash our economy in 2008, Wall Street did. ISIS is not responsible for the sorry state of our roads and bridges. Ebola is not the reason behind our ballooning health insurance premiums. It’s should be clear by now that feminists, gay rights activists, atheists, communists, environmentalists, civil rights activists, and other left of center political groups can’t be the reason behind the decay of this country, unless you’re a Fox News devotee.

The sad truth is that the people who inflicted this hell upon the American people are also fellow Americans. Artificial enemies and scapegoats can only mask the stench of civic rot for so long–sooner or later, we as a society must address our self-inflicted decay, before our country putrefies beyond our control.